Cranberry juice is one powerful antioxidant drink that’s good to keep in your food-as-medicine kitchen cabinet. It’s a festive, easy drink to serve up to your dry and under age guests that wins health points for all.
Cranberries have stood the test of time over centuries like many healthy, plant-based foods. That helped people survive.
The fruits were originally named crane-berry because it was a popular food for cranes, as in birds. Machines 🏗️ aren’t drinking or eating yet.
…Also, wouldn’t it be fun to name fruits because many are still being discovered in our New World? 💭 I remember when elderberries came on the scene as good for cold immunity… I feel like an elder berry. 😊
These days, we share these same foraged foods with other small wildlife creatures like squirrels, deers, and other birds. 🐿️🦌
And humans turn this cranberry fruit (that’s not a berry) into a drink for good reason.
For one, cranberry juice is known to be good for preventing urinary tract infections, even though it hasn’t been made fact.
But preventing infections mean less antibiotics in your body that always helps gut health. The rise of antibiotic resistance and contaminated meat is costing over $2 billion annual in the U.S., so it’s worth believing cranberry as preventative medicine.
Pure 100% juice version is the one to source and buy. 💯 without added sugars like the common cranberry cocktail version you find in convenience stores. Buy it when you’re inconveniently in the big grocery stores with a cart and the juice will last long after opened.
It’s one healthy holiday tradition that you can stand by…
And on-travel, ordering a cran-apple juice on the airplane can be a good next-to-water hydrating drink with vitamins and minerals.
At home, besides as a glass of cranberry juice, you can make a cranberry tea… either iced for warmer months or warmed tea for colder or transitional months.
And the way to keep this a low-sugar, healthy beverage is to change the taste. 100% cranberry juice is tart, so adding other natural flavors will enhance the tartness and make it exciting. ♥️
For warm tea, use dried fruits, flowers, and spices to naturally spice-up the tea, like these pairings:
-Hibiscus & rose hips
-Elderflower
-Raspberry
-Apple
-Orange Peels
-Ginger
-Cinnamon
Use a strainer for the dried bits, and if they’re finely ground, you can use a paper coffee filter that you can cut down to the right size for your strainer.
I actually like when a few tea leaves seep through as it keeps the tea homemade and rustic feeling. Turn on the moody jams and you have an enjoyable break. 🎶
But that’s a nice choice you get to make in the moment…
And at the end, zhughing with some ruby red fruits like cranberries and pomegranates sinking to the bottom make it a bottomless tea party!
In my drinks, you can even find some shredded coconut streamers or rosemary spikes, and a ‘pick of cranberries for tasty interest.
Those details come naturally from my event and party planner days where it’s all about the special zhugh. This one is good for the heart.🫀
For an iced tea version, use fresh fruits, flowers, lemon… and omit the spices.
You can also use your cranberry juice tea to make other wild fresh drinks or mocktails…
You can add cranberry seltzer water to make a big fizzy punch that’s a pink champagne color and bring up happy spirits! 🎉
Microgreens have been around longer than our modern culture.
It was a way of food survival during the winter months of the oldest civilizations on our planet… a lot like how modern squirrels have preserved the foraging acorn traditions.
Baby arugula microgreens are tasty additions to a salad 🥗
Which btw… is outdoor entertaining to watch Rocky the flying squirrel in his purposeful scurrying meal prep moves. 🐿️
How they actually feel about their work we’ll never know, but it has kept their species around.
…And to keep ours going, modern food planning is something we do.
In human life, that’s how it can look with us daily running around in our busy lives… and for me, that’s how it sometimes looked behind-the-scenes as a food service professional in organized chaos prepping and planning weekly catered event challenges in hotel ballrooms and for restaurant parties celebrating Mediterranean food styles.
And even with all the variety of food available to our planet we can be bored with our food sourcing options. 🥬
Daily, we open the fridge and pantry cupboards thinking: “what’s for dinner?” or “what can I have for a little snack?”…sometimes coming up short for a good answer. 🤔
Microgreens can be part of the answer as a healthy and tasty choice.
Here are 5 points that make microgreens a smart choice:
Point #1: Microgreens are food like-able and tasty good.
…Because if they weren’t, why bother?
Children seem to love them as some of the pickiest green eaters on earth.
Many microgreens are smaller, cute kid-size bits and bites like baby arugula, so it’s easier to get a handful of the finger foods than the adult version.
The young greens also add interest, taste, and texture to any plate.
…And why they’re not more commonly known today is unknown. Maybe like their shape-forms, they still have a wild-like reputation… 🌿
Like, I remember alfalfa sprout microgreens from a school age where I once saw the jungle wild-looking tangly-fine weeds in a friend’s lunch box that made me curious…
And now as an adult, thinking it’s a good idea. 🎉
You grow into new perspectives and healthy ways and today is a great way to spruce up 😋 and vertically beef up a light protein mustardy salad sandwich or the like (…einkorn finger sandwich idea below 🧡). Or to garnish a bowl of beets…
Point # 2: Microgreens are less bitter.
Microgreens have the reputation of being less bitter that is good news for some people’s tongues who avoid the taste.
That reminds me of green tea…
If you don’t love bitter green tea tastes that can grow stronger if brewed too hot or you picked the wrong flavor for you, then you probably don’t lean toward preferring many bitter tasting superfood veggies and plant greens.
And that’s why certain veggies 🥦🥬 don’t end up on the plate (like green tea in cups)… or in a diet despite their healthy goodness.
…Green teas 🍵 come from the same Camellia Sinensis plant as common black, white, and oolong teas but differ in process where they’re not oxidized like common black teas.
And what makes the difference for microgreens (and similar to green teas) is the process from the same plant.
Microgreens are harvested early, coming from the same plants as the adult version we see mostly on shelf space in grocery stores. 🌱
So they’re fresh and have different tastes worth trying, often more mild tasting and welcoming to all.
Point #3: Young greens are replenishable, sustainable, and abundant.
…Just like other foods from the soil, nature provides and delivers over and over again..
When we think “fresh” we immediately think of the produce aisle in a supermarket, farmers market, or our backyard garden that produces fastly perishable foods that the soil can replenish.
If you’re a green thumb growing your own mini-market, you can have microgreens planted, harvested, and eatable within foreseeable weeks (and not months or seasons that is the time most produce take). 🧑🌾
That makes microgreens more productive… and where you can have more than what you know what to do with! A good problem to have. ✔️
That would be too easy for getting a meal on the table.
And that ideal IS microgreens.
When you choose the micro-world of microgreens, you too help our community and local farmers.
…Those are baby plant little steps that you can take for your health and to support the world. 🪴
Point #4 – Microgreens are often organic without pesticides.
So much of our plant-based foods are exterior sprayed with pesticides to deter mostly bugs, and that offsets the healthy goodness of the healthiest skin parts of the food.
We throw away the skin that could have been healthy edible parts.
And today, reusable composting ways are not yet available for the common household.
So then we end up creating more waste that adds more plastic bag waste that also attracts unwanted critter nuisances to our community. But what if composting machines were as common as house dishwashing machines? 💭
But that not being today’s standards, with organic microgreens we can eat those problems away as the end consumer. And our bodies are healthier for our choice.
Point #5 – Microgreens are low calories and high in nutrition.
There are few (if any) green plant-based foods 🌱 that aren’t low in calories compared to plant-based (as in factory) foods. 🏭
Fresh microgreens from nature come packed with vitamins and minerals, along with some eat-from-the-rainbow 🌈 polyphenols that make you excited to color your plate and palette with anti-inflammatory food ideas! 🎨
And, mighty microgreens can have 4x (and up to 40x!) more nutrients than their full-grown version.
🎯 Final Points:
Microgreens fit in our consumer micro cultures where we are becoming more customizable specific in food diet preferences that impact food growing ways, and where our farming culture impacts our world.
Sustainable food and young microgreens are sprouting interest in our fast climate changing world searching for longevity answers where eating anti-inflammatory foods fit.
One way you can be part of the anti-inflammatory solution is by growing your own portable microgreen micro garden that can be indoors (good for those with outdoor allergies or without garden space).
Plus, so many viable options to bring in more microgreens from dream to life… yasss!
…That’s something to be excited about today. If this resonates with you, could you PLEASE HELP share this message with others so they can join the MICROGREEN movement that’s healthy here to stay.🎉
Oh, and heres’s an easy whole wheat or einkorn (ancient wheat) sandwich in a modern recipe you can use to make finger sandwiches that was an idea I grew up with in the catering party world… and you can use for lunch, brunch, or an afternoon party.
To gain smiles, simply add delicious microgreens like baby lettuce, cucumber, radishes, carrot, and tarragon.
I have fond memories of tea sandwiches from catering menus, and that are part of English afternoon tea events and traditions. Tea sandwiches are usually bite-size and made of spongey-soft bread where the crust is cut off. And flat crunchy bread like these add plate variety. They work well to celebrate the sandwich ingredients in the middle that can be light and/or all veggies.
Course Breakfast, brunch
Cuisine American, british
Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets
Ingredients
einkorn flour, salt, and water for the sandwich bread.
cottage cheese
cucumber
scallions
carrots
beets or radishes
lettuce
asparagus or favorite veggies
spices: dill, tarragon, black pepper
Instructions
Prepare the sandwich bread. You can make the bread in advance. Let dough proof: develop air pockets and double in size for for at least 2 hours. Then bake dough in oven in a small sheet pan about 1/4" thick until toasted. Tip: Einkorn wheat flour is not a high gluten (rise) flour, so it won't rise much and will lay more like a flat bread when baked. You need not knead long and can omit yeast. Let bread cool and slice the toast with a serated or bread knife.Alternatively if you use regular whole wheat flour, knead a few minutes longer and add about 1/4 tsp of instant yeast (easiest) for a bread that rises. You can cut horizontally into the vertical bread about 3-4 slices to get a similar flat bread effect. Optional: You can turn this into paninis by grilling or baking on a grill pan.
Prepare the raw veggies. Thinly slice into flat or close to flat pieces.
For the sandwich paste, mix cottage cheese, dill, tarragon, and black pepper. You can processor blend the cottage cheese if you would like a smoother paste.
Add paste to the bottom of the sandwich and then layer lettuce, cucumbers, carrots, and others veggies. Add the sandwich bread top. For catering-style zhugh, you can add a toothpicked cucumber slice, or radish and beet and then plate. These easy, new old-fashioned touches show you put in extra detailed care.
Plant-based breakfast ideas encourage our better low sugar healthy habits that help our bodies protect us against inflammation and preventable lifestyle diseases like Type 2 Diabetes.
Plant-based can be delicious and filling like a Three Sisters dish where the trifecta effect is proteins, carbs, and fiber.
Net healthy plant-forward 3 Sisters dish with butternut squash, corn, and black beans. Imagine starting your day with this trifecta!
Eating more plant-based foods also help our warming planet and climate change causes.
And when we align all of those intentions with farm-to-table delicious eating and seasonal food preferences, we’re restoring our Ayurvedic body balance…
Some simple examples are: we want to eat and drink lighter, cool foods like cereals, smoothies, and cold brew beverages on warm days. And prefer comfort, warm porridge and potato food on cold days.
With rapid climate change these days, we often flip flop back and forth daily and seasonally. We use our internal body cues and external clues to keep us balanced.
It’s good to be aware how all this healthy information helps us.
And the good news is there’s a plant-based fix for all of us.
Below are some plant-based breakfast ideas that can get you excited about your health, energy, and planet with unusual climate changes… plus help you lower your sugar intake.
Like an Earth Day layered drink helps us appreciate all the constantly changing stratospheres in our planet. And this is a metaphor for our lives where nothing stays the same.
Lowering Your Sugar in Breakfasts
Firstly, if you started out like I did as a sweet tooth (or still are one 😋), you know there’s definitely hope if you want to change your tastes from sugary sweet to lower sugar, healthy plant-based breakfast ideas…
Many years ago, I had a guest coming over for the holidays that I learned was diabetic. I knew I had to come up with a sweet option for this special guest. That was the only option for this former party planner (where finding a way was the only way and “once a food planner, always a planner”).
I sympathized because I couldn’t imagine going through life without sweets! 🍭
So around town I drove and picked up a bag of diabetic cookies (substituting refined sugar with maltitol). If you’re not familiar, monk fruit sugar is commonly used today as the new maltitol ingredient. I use monk fruit sugar often out of healthy preference. You don’t have to be diabetic.
And anyway, I fell in love with those diabetic cookies. I figured the guest would be as excited as I would to have an after dinner dessert with the rest of us.
Those were the days when AllRecipes was one of the very few online sites you could find recipes besides OG Martha Stewart and offline cookbooks that never grow old.
There weren’t diabetic recipe sites.
…And so, when the holiday dinner rolled around, I mentioned the cookies to the diabetic guest, and I learned something very profound I’ll never forget when he declined the sweet offer…
💡The sweet taste was no longer even a category for this person who hadn’t had a sweet bite since his diagnosis.
That was an eye-opener. Because previously I thought people were born with a sweet tooth or they weren’t (and could do nothing about their sweet sentence). And I definitely was in the first category.
When I started upon my own journey to reduce daily sugar intake, I was reminded of those lessons.
I then knew I could gradually wean off of sugar as others had (like the diabetic guest) from changing habits.
And if I knew that sooner, I probably would’ve done so sooner.
And that’s like how most of us are with our areas we want to change: we don’t know what we don’t know. 🤔
When I gradually took in less sugar, I found I craved sugar less.
I didn’t have to do the heavy lifting all myself.
My body helped me and it helps all of us when we don’t keep overfeeding our sugar cravings.
…A light cookie with a sweet tea flavor without extra sugar will do the trick. It doesn’t have to be the portions served at restaurants.
And baking your own sweet goods can save you because you don’t have a large box sitting around tempting you.
You can simply make less and then you’ve taught yourself that working for a sweet is a reward.
You satiate your sweet craving with a tiny bite that’s also the most delicious bite.
💡In economic terms, that’s: the marginal utility wears off with each bite.
💡In nutrition terms, that’s: intuitive and mindful eating helps you appreciate your food as part of daily joy and helps build a healthy relationship with food.
And in my first tries, making it through those habit forming days where I reached for a low-sugar cereal over cookies was sobering but still doable. One step forward, two steps back.
But I knew deeper down I could go a day without sugar.
And the opportunity arose where I chose to fast from sugar with a church-wide fast event. This was for our spiritual growth. We could choose anything that was addictive to us.
I was in a Bible book club then studying the book of Isaiah and learned that the people in that day were addicted to idols that caused their problems.
And without a moment’s hesitation, I picked sweets as the first thought that came to mind.
From the sweet fast experience, I learned I didn’t even crave sweets when I had an intention and was determined for a desired outcome.
But I was still stunned at what happened.
Because that was a new concept to me: what… not desire sweets!?…that would’ve shocked all my closest friends as I always had a piece of candy or something sweet on me even when I wasn’t aware.
It’s no surprise that when I was younger, I was a sucker for mosquitoes that loved my sweet blood.
And then in 2021, I started baking weekly. I added less and less sugar into my bakes. And sometimes not using refined sugar or monk fruit sugar at all and only using whole fruits, spices, and other healthy natural powder ingredients.
It was hard for me to add spoonfuls of sugar when I knew how harmful sugar is for both the body and mind.
And that became my healthy way out of sugar when my skin became inflamed with eczema during the uncertain early days of the pandemic when I was also building up a pantry and starting to home cook more.
Eczema was my wake up call.
It was my body’s warning to me that I took seriously.
And the effect was a much lighter consequence than a destroying gut microbiome outcome, Diabetes or other chronic disease diagnosis.
I used healthy teeth as one of my motivators for a comeback to heathy eating.
…As a kid I loved eating spoonfuls of white sugar straight out of the glass sugar jar. I always had cavities, and that thought alone makes me run to celery or carrots.
And yeah that was many decades ago, but that’s pretty much what we’re doing when we buy processed sweets or sugary sodas. It’s not our fault because they’re in our face all the time.
And in America and the Western world cultures, that’s just a gimme.
Plus, Vata bodies love sweets! Others do too, but it’s a given with a Vata. We were born with this desire that we can turn into a healthy one.
And you and I can survive on fruit and natural powder only sweets that are loaded with polyphenol antioxidants. I haven’t met a fruit yet that didn’t have antioxidant vitamins. 😊
This works over fighting willpower that never works. Because what you tell yourself “no” to only builds energy more toward the thought.
If you’re jonesing for southern-style Devils Food Cake, you’re not going to head for white cloud Angel Cake without a higher intervention. ☁️
Distraction and replacement are sweet answers for sugary and processed snack food cravings.
You can turn to plant-based foods, like popcorn for potato chips… and get into an activity that takes your mind off food, like a fasting habit or gardening.
If someone tells me they have a sweet tooth craving they think they could never satiate or change, I know that’s not true. It’s all made up in the mind.
You can live with a lower, healthy amount of sugar every day. That starts with your first meal where you break the fast or breakfast.
Easy Low-Sugar Plant Based Breakfast Ideas For Starters
For starters, opt for a protein. You can start with a protein shake if that fits your preferences like a layered drink that has protein powder.
As you age, your body need to increase your intake of essential amino acids to compensate for muscle loss.
Add a healthy fat like avocado that’s great when you break a fast, first thing at breakfast, or if you’ve been fasting overnight or longer.
During my catering work days, we always had a Crudite platter available for vegetarians. Raw veggies are a great way to prime the stomach first and add some roughage fiber that the gut needs.
Raw carrots, bell peppers, cauliflower, broccoli, celery, and asparagus are great examples.
They’re easy to put together on a plate. And if you need a dipping sauce, you can always use a Greek yogurt with dill as a savory healthy beginning.
And if you take vitamins, you do better taking fat-soluble Vitamins A, D, E, and K with some fat in your body. So it’s better to take those after or with your meal where you’ve had some avocado, oil, nut, or seeds in your system.
Black bean quinoa cereal. Both ingredients have protein. Add cocoa powder if you want brownie bite tastes and top with chia, flax, hemp, sunflower, etc.
Greek yogurt sundae. Add your whole fruits like banana and berries.
Sprinkle with your favorite nuts like sliced almonds, walnuts, or pistachios. Don’t be shy with your seeds. Cantaloupe and melon seeds loaded with vitamins are a nice vitamin addition too.
Oatmeal with apples or applesauce. If you’re leaning toward a little sweet taste, add Ceylon cinnamon (our Ayurvedic Vata go-to spice). This will set you up for a sweet bite without tipping the scales.
Chocolate avocado mousse. This is a great one you can blend up in seconds with dark cocoa and a ripe avocado.
Main Points
Be easy on yourself.
Be open to give the plant-based breakfast ideas a try. Pick a few more of your favorite healthy ingredients such as a banana or an avocado and let your creative breakfast imagination go wild!
Don’t give up. Not creating a deadline or rules can be the magic formula that eliminates the pressure.
Change your words and thoughts. Say, “Yum this tastes great even when it tastes odd to you.” That helps your mind to agree with you when you’re trying to be healthy.
Then next time, introduce a new healthy food or spice. Let the odd new tastes take over until they win you over.
And if you want to learn how to add fasting to your sustainable healthy habits to eliminate snacking, sweets, and extra pounds, check out the free IF guide.
If you still have a sweet hankering, you can enjoy your plant-based breakfast ideas with a decadent aroma tea like the chocolate mint black tea I’m sipping on. 🧉 And you can pair with a healthy start.
unsweetened 70% cocoa (natural, not dutch processed)
raspberries
shredded coconut
Instructions
Blend milk, avocado, and cocoa.
Zhugh with raspberries. These are anti-inflammatory ingredient pairings.
Notes
To make this healthy version is 3 main ingredients: ripe avocado, almond milk, and unsweetened cocoa (garnished with raspberries and shredded coconut).
